Dianne Sheaffer enjoyed her work as the Ionia County abstractor. But she decided to retire when her job got in the way of her after-work activities.

“I was finding it hard to work, because I do so many other fun things,” she jokes.

Sheaffer retired April 30 after 45 years in the abstract office, where she started working after graduation from SS Peter & Paul High School in Ionia in a part-time summer position.

“My job was to type abstracts up, pulling information from documents and retyping it into the form,” Sheaffer said.

When the employee she was substituting for returned, but then left permanently a few weeks later, Sheaffer was offered the full-time position.

“I came back, and that’s where I stayed,” she said. “I still typed abstracts for several years. Then they began teaching me to post the tract index, and how to draw maps. Eventually the head abstractor retired, the assistant took over, and I did more of their kind of work.”

Sheaffer continued to learn, and in the early 1980s, when the abstractor left, she took over the head position. She ran the abstract office for a few years, she said, until that office was combined with the register of deeds office, where she continued to do postings and drawings.

“The job kept evolving,” Sheaffer said. “We don’t do too many abstracts anymore, but I did searches for title companies that they ordered for closings when someone buys a piece of property. I did a lot of service to the public when they came in for help finding out information about their property or their title, especially the last 10 years, and I would help attorneys getting ready to go into court over land disputes. I did a little of everything.”

Sheaffer’s knowledge of the properties in Ionia County has made her an invaluable asset, both to the county and to residents, said Diane Adams, the county’s register of deeds and Sheaffer’s supervisor. She worked with Sheaffer for 25 years.

The Register of Deeds Office records and maintains all documents related to real and personal property in Ionia County.

“She has been here long enough to work on every parcel in the county, and she remembers,” Adams said.

Sheaffer is “very, very meticulous and accurate, and this work is very exacting,” she added. “The books that hold the complete history on a parcel of property – they have to be right. I think I’ve found one mistake she made, maybe two. Plus she’s a darn good, friendly person. Everybody likes her.”

Adams said her office will have some difficulty being as helpful to taxpayers as it has been in the past.

Page 2 of 2 - “We won’t have anybody who can give the level of service she did,” Adams said of Sheaffer.

Sheaffer is not planning to leave behind her abstractor skills completely. Her retirement plans include working independently if someone needs help solving a real estate problem. Not a lot, she said, but enough to give her “something to do.

“If an attorney or other people need help with searches – some are very difficult, and some independent searchers don’t like doing them – I may pick up on some of those,” she said. “But mostly I’m just kind of staying here and helping out on the farm.”

Sheaffer and her husband, Gary, have acreage in North Plains Township, and horses, and she is looking forward to devoting more time to them.

She also leads two 4-H clubs, the Swinging Gates 4-H Club for kids who have horses, and the 4-H Apology Club, for horse-loving kids who don’t.

“I teach them the science of the horse,” she said. “They get to compete with other counties’ teams on their knowledge.”

Sheaffer and her club have traveled to Ohio and Kentucky to compete in national competitions after winning state contests.

“Kids find that really fun, and it’s good for kids to be involved in that,” she said.

She also serves on the state’s 4-H committee at Michigan State University.

“All this takes time,” she said. “I like to volunteer to do things.”

Sheaffer said leaving her co-workers, whom she calls “my second family,” was the most difficult part of retiring.

“After all these years with them, seeing them every day, you get so they are like your family, too,” she said. “But they are not too far away to see them.”

She also will miss helping the people who came to her office.

“That’s why I’ll stick with part-time. I really enjoyed my job, and I’m really not tired of it. There just comes a time, after 45 years, I need to do some other things, too,” she said. “Who wants to get sick and then retire and have fun? As you get older, you slow down. So I ended it on a good note.”